PAUL NASH (BRITISH 1889-1946), STUDIO INTERIOR

PAUL NASH (BRITISH 1889-1946) STUDIO INTERIOR Oil on canvasSigned (lower right)81 x 39cm (31¾ x 15¼ in.)Painted in 1930.Provenance:Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., LondonBarbara Gibbs and thence by descentExhibited:London, Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., Recent Developments in British Painting, October 1931, no. 4London, Tate Gallery, Paul Nash, November-December 1975, no. 119Literature:A. Causey, Paul Nash, Oxford, 1980, no. 668, p1. 493The present painting forms part of a rare body of work by Paul Nash that solely depicts an interior, without it being a construct for an external landscape beyond. A tall slender jug holds tentacles of dried grasses and flower heads, perched upon a bookcase filled with casually inserted volumes. Before the bookcase a wooden armchair sits semi shrouded in a white sheet and an architect's T Square rests in the corner, throwing a dark shadow of a cross onto the wall behind.Nash had recently incorporated mathematical instruments into Dead Spring, painted in the previous year following the death of his father, who he was very close to. Writing to his friend Gordon Bottomley he confided that It was a tragic business losing my Dad...As you know I loved him very much...A part of my life goes with him for in so many ways he and I were linked. (A.Causey, Paul Nash, Landscape and the Life of Objects, Farnham, 2013, p.67)In writing about Dead Spring, Causey observes that A ruler and set square add to the sense that design is about geometry, measurement and control, from which the plant is suffering (ibid, p.66) and indeed the tension within the painting is created through the strong linear construction juxtaposed to the withering natural curves of the pot plant. The use of similar subject matter correlates to the present work, however the context in which it is used feels altogether more personal. The dry, formalised technique that Nash started to experiment with in 1929 where the brushstroke is disguised, eliminating the presence of the artist's individual hand and thus giving the work a timelessness and in the case of Dead Spring, a memorialising atmosphere, has been used. However, this artistic objectification is conflicted with the intimate private space in Studio Interior. We the onlooker have stumbled on a quiet overlooked corner of this room. The still life is not formally constructed but seemingly happened upon. These are real objects in a real space acutely positioned to create an emptiness in what appears to be a busy studio. Slightly claustrophobic and nostalgic but with an underlying disquiet that is present in Nash's finest works. This painting is reflective but not sentimental. It does not represent or mark a specific moment but rather the conscious inevitability of time passing for us all. .